Coping Skills
by WilderCapall
Summary: Neither of them is particularly good at coping with failure. But Rin needs to learn, and Ryo is willing to educate. RyoxRin, Free!verse alternate timeline wherein they are roommates at Samezuka.


So, um. I wrote this.

**Summary:** Neither of them is particularly good at coping with failure. But Rin needs to learn, and Ryo is willing to educate. RyoxRin, Free!verse alternate timeline wherein they are roommates at Samezuka.

**Warning:** Very AU Ryo. Tried to keep him in character, but his situation is very different.

**Coping Skills**

Ryo was in the shower when Rin got back from his race with Haruka. When he returned to the room to find his roommate huddled in the corner of his bed, glaring at his phone, he had an idea of what had happened.

The third-year sighed and ran his fingers through his damp hair.

"You lost, didn't you?"

"No," Rin snapped.

Ryo raised an eyebrow.

"You don't look like you won."

"Fuck off."

"Sure." Ryo climbed the ladder into his own bunk and flipped open his computer. He'd finished his homework, but the novel needed some attention.

Below him, he heard Rin grumbling and shuffling around, attempting to get comfortable enough to sleep. He heard breathing that caught occasionally. Ryo didn't speak.

Rin stared into the darkness of the room, lit only by the glow of Ryo's laptop. He listened to the tapping of Ryo's fingers on the keyboard, and wondered for a moment what his roommate was writing. He'd never asked. Ryo had told him once that writing was a private pursuit.

Rin got decent grades. Ryo was something else. He was a machine. Perfect grades, head of the track team, pretty nice life as far as Rin could tell. He had a little brother, apparently, who didn't go to Samezuka. Ryo didn't talk about him much.

In any case, Rin couldn't imagine that Ryo had ever had to deal with failure. He was perfect.

"I'm not perfect either, you know," a voice issued from the top bunk, as though Ryo had heard his thoughts.

"Close enough," Rin muttered.

Ryo laughed at that.

"If you'd seen me two years ago, you wouldn't say that," he said quietly. Rin heard the laptop snap shut, and Ryo's footsteps on the ladder. "You mind?" he asked.

Rin shook his head, and Ryo sat down next to him.

"I thought I was the best of the best when I was a kid," Ryo said with a soft smile that Rin missed in the dark. "And I was, for my age, in my town. My first year here taught me different. I was almost sixteen, I was cocky. And I got my ass kicked for that.

"Downward spiral doesn't begin to cut it. I got kicked off the team, I was bitter, my grades fell, and I was sure I'd have to go home and tell my mother I'd failed.

"But you know what, I picked my ass up, I learned to deal with the fact that you can't win every time, and I made myself fucking _function_. Can't say it wasn't an ugly journey to learning that one. I ran until I passed out a couple of times. Ended up in the hospital once. But you don't have to go that far. I don't want to see you turn into me."

"Being you doesn't seem so bad," Rin whispered.

In the dark, Ryo reached out to touch Rin's face, traced the younger boy's cheekbone with his thumb.

"Don't be me, Rin. If you want to swim, then swim. You might not be the best yet, but you can handle it. If they beat you, get stronger. Picking yourself up is harder than falling."

Ryo felt a tear drop onto his hand, and he grabbed the front of Rin's jacket and yanked him forward.

"_Hey_. No more of that. Don't tell me I wasted that speech."

But Rin was shaking, and the tears wouldn't stop. Ryo shook his head.

_Damn it, this is why no one lets me give the pep talks._

"He let me win, I know he did," Rin said, trying to mask pain with harshness.

"Don't. Don't think about him right now."

Rin's eyes widened as Ryo leaned forward and kissed him. And _that_ managed to startle him out of crying.

"Are you _done_?" Ryo asked, switching on the light and looking at Rin with the hint of a smile.

"What the hell was that?" Rin demanded.

"You," Ryo said, tapping Rin's forehead, "need to learn how to lose control. You don't _have_ control, but you think you do, and that's dangerous. I, being rather well-versed in losing control, am going to teach you something. But not tonight. Tonight you're going to sleep or think."

Rin lay down and rolled over, pulling the covers over himself and muttering. Ryo rolled his eyes and returned to his own bed.

**End Chapter**


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